Q. Just overall thoughts on the Red Sox and the job they did in this whole series?

TONY La RUSSA: Well, give them credit, congratulate them on being the World Champions. I mean they outplayed us in every category, so it ended up not being a terrific competition, but give them credit and congratulate them.

Q. Was it your team that just didn't come around or was it the Red Sox pitching? The middle of your batting order just didn't deliver for you.

TONY La RUSSA: Well, I think it's -- they deserve a lot of credit. We were ready to play. We didn't play good enough. As I said, I congratulate them. We just got outplayed, outpitched.

Q. Every time Marquis seemed like he might explode or implode he seemed to regain strength. How tough was this to decide whether or not to take him out of the game?

TONY La RUSSA: Well, that's what we've been asking for, a starting pitcher to go out and pitch like he did. I think that he did a real good job to give us a chance to win. He's shown that a lot this season where he doesn't spook with men on base, in fact he gets tougher a lot of times. He earned those extra hitters and it worked out.

Q. I wasn't here, I don't know if this has been asked, Larry Walker's sacrifice bunt, was that indicative of a different style of play you wanted to bring tonight or was that Larry's choice?

TONY La RUSSA: He was upset when he came in the dugout. He had the third baseman over, and that was a bunt for base hit. He was trying to bunt the ball down the third base line, he does it very well.

We definitely weren't sacrificing there. If you hit a line drive single everybody shakes your hand if it's there. Hits a line drive to center, left, it's first and second. It was a line drive left, it just didn't get to the line.

Q. Obviously with the sweep it casts a different shadow on the season, can you use this moment to sum up the effort of your team for the entire season?

TONY La RUSSA: We started to -- in Spring Training we thought we had a chance for the ring. We had to play good in the regular season, tough division, we did that. We survived two playoffs, so it's a huge disappointment.

It's an outstanding club, one of the neatest clubs to be around in 27 years of managing. It's terrific, but we were short, so it was disappointing.

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